I also understand the appreciable filtering behaviour of the search field. Some time ago, I proposed an adaptive behaviour: show the filtered results, then collapsable the global results. When there are no filtered results, the global results are decollapsed, but if there is a filtered result, the global results remain collapsed.

At any rate, another solution might be Spotlight to search also amongst tasks (actually it only seems to search through projects, right?).

One last suggestion: I often want to do this global search to make sure not to doubly add a task. We could also imagine a live, global search through existing tasks, while entering a new task description.

if you’re still on the fence about the pro update, then you’d be missing all of the other features that significantly outclasses Things. Every software package has its warts and blemishes. Heck, even Things takes forever to add features.

Set up a changed perspective once and you’re done. That takes less than 5 minutes. Certainly not a PITA.

It’s more about investing the money into a program where it takes over a year to add a (seemingly) simple feature change that was mentioned.

Sure the changed perspective workaround works, but imagine if every time you wanted to use spotlight, or search in the mail app, or google search, you had to define the domain of search first. It greatly diminishes the usefulness of the search.

yeah @r_constanzo, your complain is well- deserved. But all in all (and having an unhealthy love/hate relationship with OF) I have to admit that @wilsonng is nailing it as most of the time- nothing is ever simple and that especially goes for superficially easy stuff, it seems. I nevertheless am confident that there will come a day (blend in heroic anthem) when OF will receive the search it deserves: global by option, equipped with the almighty parsing engine.

I myself am reluctantly returning from the feature-wise completely superior 2Do. You can do anything all the ranters and complainers here are requesting: tags, priorities, global search, inbox alongside the project list, native reminders sync.

And?

I am back because all these wonderful features were not able to really keep me consistent in my reviews, my oversight and my dilligence to resist the challenges task management brings alongside- I feel I don’t deserve the power of 2Do yet. I need OF to out of necessity do the daily evening review, otherwise the deferred tasks are gone.
Compared to these highly personal issues, one of my least problems is having a shortcut for the changed perspective and hitting that milliseconds before I nail my search terms into the search bar.

A Workflow for the OS X app Alfred: This is a workflow that performs free text searches on OmniFocus data.

Basically, you invoke the search by typing .s into the Alfred prompt followed by a text search term, and your task appears- neat! Even neater, since this is accessing the OF db from virtually anywhere, you can straight jump to a certain project or task from anywhere.

Weird though to see this implemented from the outside first…ah who cares! Global search,yay

This thread is over 2 years old now… I’ve pretty much given up on this (basic) feature, and reading back through the thread it surprises me that people think it’s reasonable or not clunky to have to resort to other apps to add a feature that exists in every other piece of software (including the iOS version of the same app!) (the ability to search through all tasks/comments/projects/notes), or having to pay for the pro version to be able to use in built in workaround.

On Mac, OmniFocus will also be getting more control over style settings, allowing more font and color choices such as switching to dark mode. We’ll continue to improve syncing, turning our attention to changing the file format to improve conflict resolution for synced edits and to allow backward- and forward-compatible syncing as we introduce new features to OmniFocus.

…

Across the board, in all our apps, we’ll be continuing to improve the overall user experience, finding out where the little points of friction are that get in the way and make the apps more difficult than they could be.

We’ve just about finished delivering all the changes listed in the first paragraph, and will be turning our attention to global search in OmniFocus for Mac: it’s one of those “little points of friction” that I reference in the second paragraph.

(For now, it’s worth noting that the built-in workaround doesn’t require Pro: the Changed perspective is also available from the Perspectives menu in Standard. But I’m looking forward to that workaround becoming irrelevant.)

Search should default to Global Search or offer that as an easy toggle.

I just got bitten by this one. Got no results, then selected the top level, got a result, BUT I COULD’T SEE WHERE IT WAS IN THE PROJECTS TREE. This to me is a BIG fault.

If I run a search, the location in the tree should be highlighted, as well as presenting the in the results pane. If I get multiple results, then the currently selected one is highlighted in the project tree.

I would say default should be “Search Current Focus” If you are unfocused, it searches everything.

So search options could be:

Search current selected item.

Search siblings

This project

Search current focus

Search everywhere. If there is no focus set, then these last 2 are equivalent.

This may be overkill. To search siblings, set focus on parent, or just select parent. To search this project, select project first. In both of these, your search option would be search selected item.

Usually however, I know the structure of my current item pretty well, so searching OUTSIDE (e.g. everywhere) is far more likely than inside.

Sanity checks: If default is current focus, then if there are more than N (setable in preferences) you get asked, “Search returns 500 items. Narrow down?”

We just put out Test Builds of OmniFocus 2.8 that include a feature that folks have been requesting for a while. We're definitely interested in hearing how our implementation of global search matches your expectations, so feel free to reply here or email omnifocus@omnigroup.com with feedback. Full release notes:
Global Search — You can now change the search scope from “Here” to “Remaining” or “Everything” by clicking the icon in the search field.
Scroll Position — The change in v2.7 to keep t…

OMG, I came across this thread because I, too, are very frustrated when it comes to looking for some items in my piles of projects/actions. It’s really such a surprise to have learned that the problem has been there since 2014!

Can’t believe I almost paid $80 for an app that doesn’t feature global search - -"